Abstract
The placement and frequency of anthropogenic bone surface modifications (BSMs) on proboscidean bones are variables that could indicate how Paleolithic people utilized carcasses, thus providing evidence about the economic value of proboscideans. A single study published decades ago (Crader 1983) provides data about anthropogenic BSMs on bones of elephants butchered by Bisa people in Zambia, but no other studies with such details are available. By necessity, interpretations of BSMs on fossil proboscidean bones may be partly based on models derived from the skinning, meat-stripping (a.k.a. filleting), and dismemberment of nonproboscidean carcasses. Here we report BSMs on a sample of the largest limb bones and ribs from African elephant carcasses which were skinned, stripped of meat, and partly dismembered by expert butchers, and we also report BSMs unintentionally created by less skilled butchers. Based on observations and experiments, we predict how and why certain BSMs vary in placement and frequency due to butcher expertise and to different objectives of butchering, such as maximizing recovery of carcass resources for extensive or long term needs versus recovery of fewer resources sufficient for current needs. BSMs differ when soft tissue is removed from fresh versus partly decomposed or dried elephant carcasses. We compare our general observations with a sample of BSMs which have been interpreted as traces of meat-stripping or dismemberment in assemblages of extinct proboscideans Mammuthus spp. and Mammut americanum. The information about BSMs reported here may increase the interpretive potential of proboscidean assemblages.